'European Football Weekends is a perennial source of
pleasure' The Guardian

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Aris Thessaloniki fans

The best fans in Europe?

Are Aris Thessaloniki fans the best in Europe? It's not often Guardian correspondent, Daniel Taylor makes two references to fans in the first three paragraphs of a match report, but for their recent home game with Manchester City he couldn't help but describe the incredible din and raucous atmosphere at the Kleánthis Vikelídis Stadium.

There can't be a single football fan that has come away from watching a game at Aris, either on television or in the flesh, and not talked about their support. It's fervent, passionate, frenzied, riotous, deafening....(yes, yes, we get the picture, you can put your thesaurus away now - Ed.).

European Football Weekends managed to dial up Chrisanthos Tsaltidis as the Kitrinomavri (Yellow-blacks) boarded the plane to England for the Europa League return leg with City. He quite literally (Jamie) had two minutes before the safety demonstration which, although he'd been a frequent flyer with the team this season, he was still under instructions to pay attention to. So here we have it - 120 seconds with Aris Thessaloniki:

From what I've seen, there seems to be a very special atmosphere at the Kleánthis Vikelídis Stadium. Is it like that for every game? Almost at every game. But our fans prepare some extra events when we play European games

How many fan groups do you have? The biggest is SUPER-3. They have offices all over Greece and also at some other European countries. They have over 10000 members. We also have IEROLOHITES who got their name from the ancient Greek warriors!

Is it easy to get tickets for a match. Can we buy them on the day of the game or dowe need to book in advance? Europa League games nearly always sell out so you need to buy tickets well in advance. For the Greek Superleague games, you can normally buy tickets on the day unless it's a big game against Panathinaikos, AEK, Olympiakos or PAOK.

How much do match tickets cost? Between €15-€60.

What is the allocation for away fans at the stadium in terms of numbers? We have a separate gate for them (Gate 4) that can hold about 1200 fans.

Do fans in the Greek Super League travel in big numbers to away games? Only the fans of the big clubs. Aris fans want to travel everywhere. But in the last few years they've been prevented from travelling by some new government laws. In order to travel the two clubs must first agree, and even then the police have the final decision. And they usually don't let the fans travel.

Who are you main rivals? PAOK in Thessaloniki and the three big clubs in Athens

Do you have a friendship with any other clubs? With many clubs over the world. I think one of the most important is with Boca Juniors. They came over last year for a friendly game in our stadium.

What is the stadium like? It's like a proper football stadium!

Are there any plans to move to a new ground? We would like a bigger stadium, and we have found the space to build one, but again, Greek law is preventing us from getting started.

What is Thessaloniki like as a city? Very friendly. It's a place to drink your coffee by the sea during the day and enjoy the nightlife at the clubs and "bouzoukia" until the morning!

If we travelled over for a match, would we be made welcome and are there any bars we can meet with local fans near to the stadium on match days? Of course my friend, of course.

Thanks, and can we buy a beer in the stadium? Yes, but with no alcohol. Don't panic though, there is a popular bar at the ground called Beer F.C. that sells all types of beers and sausages. We also have large plasma screens showing football, not just on match days, but all during the week.

We're on our way! But before we travel, how safe is it to watch football in Greece? It is safe. Sometimes of course some people make some incidents that can cause serious problems, but that usually occurs outside of the stadiums.

Is there much football violence at games? It depends what you mean. It's not unusual to see bottles or coins flying about, but any actual violence usually happens outside the stadium.

Which other sports are popular in Thessoloniki? Basketball and volleyball. In Basketball ARIS is one of the best clubs ever in Greek sports. They've won three European Cups, and lots of Championships and domestic cups.

Is it true the club has its own radio station? Of course and we are the only club in Greece to do so. ARIS FM 92.8.

And finally, a prediction for tonight? A glorious victory for the Theos tou polemou (God of war) of course!

I am a fan of CSKA Moscow and i believe that fans of P.A.O.K. are the best in the world. 1000 of them came in Lubinski at -20C. I attended also the match in Thessaloniki and fans of P.A.O.K. were the craziest i have ever seen.

I am a csska fan too and i felt asleep at paok stadium because i was very tired it was very silent and peaceful the fans of paok like ours!!!!From the videos that i watched of aris fans there are i think the most crazy fans that i have ever seen!!!

they came in thousands to madrid as well. Kept on singin the whole day not only during the game and they didnt create any issue or at least i didnt notice anything.funny accents and haircuts;)by far the best in europe but not in the world

Anonymous said... "I am a fan of CSKA Moscow and i believe that fans of P.A.O.K. are the best in the world. 1000 of them came in Lubinski at -20C. I attended also the match in Thessaloniki and fans of P.A.O.K. were the craziest i have ever seen."

Lubinski?!? The Stadium is called Luzhniki. However you could call it "Lubinski" because of the 1000 "Lubines" that came there once upon a time...

sure they deserve respect, they have no title in greek League A since its beginnig, and just a lone Cup in 1970 (the so called exception to the rule). They also hold the envious title of getting to several greek cup finals without playing vs any strong opponent, and scoring no goals there whatsoever. Tell me about pride. Athinaikos fans are the best.They played the strong team of Manchester after all, and their team had a tie at home as well.

Nice article. ARIS fans are the best since we have to take a title from 1970 however we are the only team in Greece with so many sold outs in Europe, ARIS FM radio owned by the team, ARIS Members Club with members that vote for the presidency.We try to have our new stadium more or less around 40.000 seats however due to crisis in Greece we need time. Overall ARIS has many domestic and European titles in soccer, bascetball and volley which added up overbalanced the rest from all our opposites in North Greece.We rule North Greece.

sure they can boast of reasonable thinking. The guy from Cyprus says it is an attainment to have a sold-out in Europe, pretty much as what most greek teams do, specially when they have a little home stadium like aris. But, what somebody would ask from acypriot? They cannot even speak straight...

Josef Goebbels should have been an aris fan, he was the master of Propaganda but he was overwhelmed by his pupils. I don't know how cypriots understand things, but 10 titles 30 years ago in basketball (a sport far from european recognition) doen't make aris a master in northern greece. Iraklis is by far more succesful in volley, paok is by far more succesful in football and lately in basketball as he holds the last title. Aris is the master in relegations as he fell in B League twice in the last 10 years. He even failed to conquer two championships there, tell me about mastery. And for last, how aris needs to build a stadium of 40000 seats when they cannot fill one of half the size? Surely a cypriot Goebbels should find a "reply"...

i want everyone to know just to make things clear that PAOK also fell at the B League right after his creation...also his record of not getting a title is 46 years..also to PAO and Olympiacos fans you have to be very stupid to believe that you own the superleague..you just have paid every ref in the superleague and you are glad about it..and of course our fans are the best..

Goebbels #2, you just forgot to tell us WHEN PAOK fell into league B. Was it before 1926? Was there any official league in Greece then?Aris, the shame of Greece, they played friedly matches vs the SS troops in WW2.

ARIS has the most loyal fans maybe on the planet. It is true that ARIS played twice in the 2nd league, NONE of which was due his athletic performance BUT BOTH times due to 'decisions' of Greek federation that subtracted points based on ridiculous 'laws' that were valid just for 2-3 weeks (!!) and just for ... ARIS. And being in the 2nd league, thousands of ARIS fans were following their team. On the contrary, fans of ALL other Greek teams make 2 or 3 'celebratory' sold outs when they play well, but QUIT their team when things go wrong. For example, the negative attendance record ever belongs to paok with circa ... 200 tickets!!! Of course all other teams represent the well known domestic corruption in the football field. For example, paok was the team of dictators and build due to them their 'so called' big team of 70's. Even this year, they lick and worship olympiakos (which pulls all 'the strings' and makes all decisions on who will earn what in the greek league) on the promise that olympiakos will 'fix' them to get the cup. Auta tourkoi gia na ma8ainete

Our major rivals, the fans of Paok keep saying that they just don't give a damn about us. Well, what I see is that a couple of them hired English teachers to learn English and post a comment here, pretending they are CSKA fans and whatsoever. Nothing else.